


leave in any way but slowly (turn back, turn back, turn back)

by authenticaussie



Series: and we can watch the stars on the water [66]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Codependency, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, pre-Fushicho Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace/Sabo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authenticaussie/pseuds/authenticaussie
Summary: Marco deals with being turned into a doll on Dressrosa, Ace deals with finding his long-lost, potentially amnesiac best friend, and Sabo doesn't do anything but cause problems, because he's unconscious.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace & Sabo
Series: and we can watch the stars on the water [66]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/131913
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67





	leave in any way but slowly (turn back, turn back, turn back)

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK okay hopefully this makes sense but Hell Yeah Ace lives au but uh-oh bc he lives, Sabo never got his memories back. Whoops. Thankfully Ace isn't as faceblind as Luffy and recognises him, but it comes at the cost of Fucking Up Marco, who got whammied with Sugar's powers and forgotten by his boyfriend AND loving family. Everyone say "rip Marco"

Ace has been camped out by Sabo’s bedside for two days before Marco can gather up enough courage to go see him. Them.

The events at Dressrosa had been…off-putting. Had involved a lot of arguing, and Marco was still getting over being turned into a plush toy and forgotten. It wasn’t Ace’s fault that Marco needed time, nor that there was a niggle of fear in the back of his head that when he stepped through the door, Ace would turn from Sabo, look at him with blank eyes, and say “ _who_?“

Instead, Ace says, “I’m not leaving him,” and crosses his arms. With his glare aimed at Sabo, Marco could almost pretend Ace was mad at his best friend instead of his boyfriend. Instead of his crew, the people who’ve spent days worrying about him, but who’ve also spent the time trying to convince him to leave Sabo’s side.

Marco shuts the door. “I don’t expect you to,” he says softly, and sets a tray down by Ace’s side. Ace’s sharp posture relaxes incrementally, but he doesn’t look over at Marco’s offering. On the bedside table is the tray from breakfast, still half-full and carefully sectioned to one side of the plate. The side closest to Sabo’s unconscious form. Marco shifts the plate away, carefully, and places the tray in Ace’s lap. “Eat,” he says. “All of it.”

“I’m not hungry-”

“ _Eat_ ,” Marco says, stern this time, and when Ace looks like he’s going to protest, Marco takes his chin and makes Ace look at him. “Thatch has about a hundred meals on standby for when he wakes up. I’m here for his injuries. Pops is already excited to say hello. Trust us.”

Ace pauses, a second, two seconds too long. His fingers tighten in his shorts. “I do.”

“Then let us take care of you. Of him.”

“I’m not-” Ace says, soft, and his eyes slide away, guilty and sad. “I’m not…used to that.”

Marco forces a grin, tugging gently on Ace’s hair to make Ace swat at his hand and to try and coax a smile onto Ace’s face. “With how this crew spoils you, you’d think you’d be used to being taken care of.”

Ace doesn’t smile at the tease. His mouth curls even further down. “No. No, not- not you guys taking care of me.” His face slips from between Marco’s fingers, turning his head to look at Sabo like he can’t bear to take his eyes off Sabo’s body. “At…anybody else taking care of _him._ It was always just…us.”

He reaches out, hand shaking as he lets his fingertips run down the side of Sabo’s scar, passing over his cheekbone, and then-

Stops, just at the corner of Sabo’s lips, like he’s too afraid to touch there. Too afraid to go further. Sabo frowns and makes a pained noise, tilting against Ace’s touch, and Ace yanks his hand away, startled.

“I’m sorry,” Ace whispers, and Marco doesn’t know if Ace is saying it to Sabo, or to him. For a moment, his heart squeezes.

In the back of his head, Marco had always been…jealous, of Sabo. Unfortunately so, considering that Sabo was dead, and being jealous of a dead man generally made people worried, but the thing was - when Ace had first told Marco about his brothers, he hadn’t mentioned anything about Sabo being dead.

And with the way Ace slipped Sabo into stories - _I figure Sabo would’ve said this,_ or _Luffy pretended Sabo was his imaginary friend for a whole month when he was fourteen_ \- Marco had always assumed Sabo was out there, somewhere, and that Ace was just settling. Settling for kind enough, strong enough, kept a secret well enough, and that, perhaps, Ace didn’t _realise_ he loved Sabo because they’d been so close, and Ace had nothing to compare it to.

That when he didhave something to compare, when Marco had given Ace everything he had, Ace would realise _actually,_ he was in love with his childhood best friend, and thanks for the help in realising it, Marco, but if it’s all alright, Ace would just be going back along to the first person who’d made him feel like he was worthsomething.

Finding out Sabo was dead ( _supposed to be dead_ ) had…eased that, somewhat. Of course Marco was second-best to a ghost; ghosts weren’t anything like the living. You could make them into whatever you wanted, whatever you needed, and Ace needed someone to love him unconditionally. Someone who had his back, who knew every trick, who cornered sheep to fleece them out of their money and knowledge and whatever else the two of them wanted. If Marco was second-best to that, he didn’t mind losing the competition.

And then two nights ago he hadn’t even been part of the competition. He’d been taken from everyone’s memories, forgotten by everyone he’d ever cared about, and watched Ace risk his life for a facsimile of the mera mera. Watched him meet Sabo, trade jokes and barbs like they were rehearsed, and wear a frown that got deeper with every word - right up until the explosion at the SMILE factory caught Sabo like a wrecking ball and realisation hit Ace at the same time. 

A realisation that Marco didn’t share. He was not supposed to be the one caught flat-foot when it came to information about Ace, and yet-

Ace ignored Marco entirely to drag Sabo’s body close, burying his tear-streaked face into Sabo’s coat and bawling like he’d just lost something important. (Found something important was probably more accurate-) Especially after Ace said, _Luffy and I were so worried about you,_ and then, like a confessional, _I wanted to die_ , before he braced himself and gathered Sabo into his arms, carrying him back to the ship.

Ten minutes into knowing Sabo, and two days into Ace hovering by Sabo’s side, Marco could already tell; they were Ace-and-Sabo, Sabo-and-Ace, linked names like knots in a bracelet, like animal codependency. One without the other was asking for desert dwellers to drown, or mermaids to fly.

But being forgotten still hurt, being ignored had left his chest aching, and logistics didn’t make him feel better about Ace spending two days by Sabo’s bedside.

Ace leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and letting out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’m sorry I’ve just been- here, with him. I’ve just been-” Ace trailed off.

“Worried,” Marco supplied, and Ace nodded.

“What if he’s- different? He didn’t seem like he had memories of us.”

Marco looked away when Ace began to blink rapidly, but stepped closer just in case. Ace hated to be seen crying, no matter how many times the crew said it didn’t make him weak, but Marco couldn’t leave him.

There was a gentle thunk as Ace plonked his head against Marco’s hip, taking the comfort offered by refusing to unwind from his stiff position. “If he doesn’t remember-” Ace stopped, grip tightening on his biceps before he managed to let go. “If he didn’t remember us, would that have been-” Ace reaches out again, hand hovering over Sabo’s skin. “Would that have been better?” Ace’s voice dropped, hollow and blank. “He wouldn’t know me.”

“And what did you think, as soon as you’d gotten back memories of me?” Marco asked, carefully pushing down the part of him that wanted a proper answer, wanted more from Ace than to use this trauma as ammunition, but-

Ace looks at him, finally, so pained that Marco’s heart tightens. He holds out his hand, searching, and wraps fingers around Marco’s palm, pulling him in close. “It hurt,” he said. “It hurt to realise I’d forgotten you. That I’d been hurting you because I wasn’t- I don’t want to hurt him. If I leave-”

“How do you think you’d feel, if you found out I’d left you?”

“He knows more about me than you do,” Ace says, and Marco ignores the sting in his heart. Jealous of a dead man, but the dead man’s still breathing, picking Ace away from him bit by bit, like peeling fingers off a cliff face.

“If he knows more,” Marco says, trying to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, “then to have lost it would hurt more.”

Ace gives a short, sharp laugh. “And what if-”

“ _Stop,”_ Marco snaps. “Stop with the what-ifs and apologies and the idea that the man you care so much about, who cares so much _about you,_ will be so irredeemably different. We won’t know until he wakes up. Also, if you say anything about him not waking up, I’m taking that as a slight on my skills as one of the best doctors in the world, and I will _not_ be pleased about it.”

Finally, a smile comes to Ace’s lips. “Bit arrogant, aren’t you?”

Marco sniffs haughtily, relief spreading over him like a blanket. “I have every right to be,” he says, trying not to let contentment sneak into his tone as well. “And, look, Ace- I can’t say he won’t be different. He did look like he’d had pretty severe head trauma as a child, and you don’t know what he’s been doing for the past twelve years. But I can say for certain that he loves you. Probably as much as I do.”

The tiniest flush crept onto Ace’s cheeks, and Marco smiled to see it, a small painful thing.

“And, all of this-” Marco says, and watches guilt flash across Ace’s face, heavy in the downturn of his mouth, and Marco sighs. “It was hard,” he says, picking the words as carefully as one might sew stitches. “Being…forgotten. Watching you go through that and knowing I couldn’t help. My powers were…they’re meant to be useful, and I couldn’t do anything. I know you want to take care of him yourself. I know that’s what you’re used to, but I- “ 

Marco paused, then carefully reached out to touch Ace’s cheek; curve down the bone, his jaw, stopped at the corner of his lips. “You have me, now. And if that’s not what you want any more, that’s fine.” Ace jolts, eyes wide, and Marco presses his fingertip against Ace’s lips so he can finish speaking without interruption. “But I’d help, if that was what you needed. Wanted.”

“ _Marco,”_ Ace breathes, and then he’s up and out of the chair, warm hands on Marco’s cheeks, their foreheads pressed together. “I’m not used to it. Not used to not being alone.”

“You’re a package deal. I’m not complaining.” A wicked smirk curves up Marco’s face. “I can think of quite a few crew members who are going to be _real_ pissed at me for being close to both of you.”

Ace’s blush deepens further. Marco’s grin gets wider.

“Why _Ace,”_ he says, and he knows Ace has caught his tone when Ace starts yelling, _shut up shut up shut up!_ “What are _you_ thinking about?”

As Ace yells at him for the innuendo, spluttering as he tries to defend himself and his feelings, Marco lets his smirk fade into something fond. Sabo hadn’t seemed soft, before he’d fainted, and he’d made Ace cry ( _more than once,_ Marco’s colder side whispered,) but to get to know the man who’d saved Ace’s life, who’d kept Ace safe, and even being able to see the crew’s faces when Marco first cracked a two-for-one joke and got to show off how happy Ace was-

Well.

It wouldn’t make up for being forgotten, but Ace isn’t setting him aside - and Marco’s looking forward to the new memories they’ll make together.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! I love that sweet sweet validation. And talking to people. And hearing that my work makes Sense.


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